Villager

I like Twain. Many of his famous quotations would be appropriate. Others like the one below, might not be appropriate for a senior book, but are great just the same.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. I consider them unwise and I know they are dangerous. Also, sinful. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet retired spot and kill him." - Mark Twain

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dream.
Wandering by lone sea breakers, and sitting by desolate streams.
World losers and world forsakers, for whom the pale moon gleams.
Yet we are movers and the shakers of the world forever it seems."
Arthur O'Shaunessey

Villager

from Hamlet (some personal favorites, which I might have used, but may not make sense for you, but just for kicks...)
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." (II.i166-67)

"There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be [now], 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it [will] come — the readiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows what is't to leave betimes, let be." (V.ii.219-24)

In fact, I used a Woody Allen quote for mine:
"It's not that I'm afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

and, also from Mr. Allen,
"Some people look to achieve immortality through childbirth, I prefer to achieve immortality by not dying." (this might be a little off as I'm recalling it from memory...)

F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise
"I know myself, that is all —" (Yes, that's it with the dash...if you know where to find it in the book, it'll make more sense.)

Hmm. There are others. I can't think of a lot right now off the top of my head.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is a great place to look (I'm assuming it's online somewhere, but your library is sure to have a copy if your family or someone you know doesn't), as long as you know what you're looking for when you open it up.

Villager

Villager

Steve Martin, in L.A. Story:
"There comes a time in a person's life when it's now or never. It's now or never! Let me read to you from this book of poems: 'O pointy birds, o pointy pointy. Anoint...'"

or, if you like, John Cusack in Say Anything...
"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."

[Edit/mini-Hijack — Incidentally, if you haven't seen Say Anything..., it's a spectacular movie and somewhat appropriate if you're getting ready to graduate from high school anytime soon. Not to mention, it might be the king of all date movies, although it definitely holds up on it's own. Just my opinion, though...L.A. Story's worth seeing, too.]

Autoexreginated

Johnny Cage: I'm in a hostile environment. I'm totally unprepared. And I'm surrounded by a bunch of guys who probably want to kick my butt. I feel like I'm back in high school. - Mortal Kombat.

And then there are certain truths that cannot be passed:

The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life. - Robert Louis Stevenson

Learn as if you were going to live forever. Live as if you were going to die tomorrow. - Unknown

Villager

"...for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are —
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
— Tennyson, "Ulysses" ll.59-70

"I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."
— Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. XXVII.13-16

Both kind of somber, but truly great quotes, too.

Anyhow, I'm really going to try and study now...(really, here I go....off studying....book's open and everything....)

This is a line and a half of verse in which the Trojan Laocoon warns his people against the Trojan horse. Roughly translated, it means: "Don't trust the horse, Trojans. Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, even bearing gifts."

Theodore Williams's more poetic translation is: "Trust not this horse, O Troy, whate'er it bode! I fear the Greeks, though gift on gift they bear"

Obviously, the Trojans didn't listen to Laocoon, thus brining about the destruction of Troy. So, it serves as a warning against hubris, as well as a reminder to heed good advice.

Villager

Villager

I used to be something of a quote collector. Here are some personal favorites. A mix of wit, wisdom, and flat out goofiness (though I kept out the really inflammatory ones )

"You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was made to be wooed and won by youth." - Winston Churchill

"If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing." - Benjamin Franklin

"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." - Confucius

"To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage." - Confucius

"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." - G. K. Chesterton

"You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it." - Samuel Butler

"He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god."
- Aristotle

"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is the victory over self." - Aristotle

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

"Good can imagine Evil: but Evil cannot imagine Good." - W. H. Auden

"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one." - Marcus Aurelius

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." - Francis Bacon

"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion." - Francis Bacon

"I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually." - James Baldwin

"God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December." - Sir James M. Barrie

"Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing." - Robert Benchley

"The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for five seconds and think for ten minutes." - William Cowper Brann

"The pleasure of criticizing robs us of the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Those who make the worst use of their time most complain about its shortness." - Jean de La Bruyère

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world." - Buddha

"Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little." - Edmund Burke

"In every object there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye brings means of seeing." - Thomas Carlyle

"If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep." - Dale Carnegie

"Pay less attention to what men say. Just watch what they do." - Dale Carnegie

"The Christian ideal has not been tired and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried." - G. K. Chesterton

"You can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it." - G. K. Chesterton

"Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others." - Winston Churchill

"If a man could mount to heaven and survey the mighty universe, his admiration of its beauties would be much diminished unless he had some one to share in his pleasure." - Cicero

"Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come home." - Bill Cosby

"Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts." - Charles Dickens

"Bold knaves thrive without one grain of sense, but good men starve for want of impudence." - John Dryden

"It's more comfortable to feel that we're a slight improvement on a monkey than such a falling off from the angels." - Finley Peter Dunne

"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice." - Albert Einstein

"There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
- Albert Einstein

"The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself." - Benjamin Franklin

"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live." - Martin Luther King Jr.

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair." - Kahlil Gibran

"What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." - Ernest Hemingway

"In a time of drastic change it is the learners who survive; the 'learned' find themselves fully equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer

"Life is a romantic business. It is painting a picture, not doing a sum -- but you have to make the romance, and it will come to the question how much fire you have in your belly." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

"Man's mind stretched by a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.